It seems to me that wisdom is the most important thing we can learn this century. Without it we will struggle to make sense of life.
And yet you can complete 18+ years of formal education and come out of it with remarkably little of it. You can do a Masters or a PhD and not even touch the subject of wisdom.
The problem is that being wise is not a purely mental process. It touches into something much deeper and more expanded than the logical mind. You need to engage your whole self to access wisdom and this is also something that’s rarely taught at school.
But imagine how powerful it would be to make wise decisions every day. How your life would change, over time, if you kept on making wiser and wiser decisions.
And imagine how different life would be on this planet if the majority of people were able to make wise decisions.
So who’s responsible for teaching it? I don’t think you can expect the education system to sort this out for a long time. And most parents haven’t learned much wisdom so it’s very hard for them to lead their kids.
I suspect the only person who can take care of being wise is you – and me. We need to explore it for ourselves, actively and consciously. We need to reflect deeply, ask big questions and share our wisdom with others.
We need to make a commitment to wisdom, which means always taking the higher path when it’s really tempting to follow what everyone else is doing. And it means doing it again and again and again.
So do you have a process for making wise decisions? Can you feel when you’re being unwise? Are there signs that you look out for?
Is it something you think about, talk about, teach your kids?
If not, what are you going to do about it?
